A Soldiers' Duty

Ladley, on his 33rd birthday, reports today with 31 other Florida National Guard soldiers for duty in the war on terror. He will be out of bed by 4:30 a.m., be on a plane for Fort Dix at 6:30, spend two weeks training as an MP, and then depart for Afghanistan.

“It’s going to be long hours and sleepless nights,” Ladley told the Boca Raton News after an afternoon farewell ceremony. “I won’t have much time to think about what’s going on at home, but those thoughts will catch up with me whenever I go to bed at night. That’s going to be the hardest part.”

The Port St. Lucie resident’s battalion, a part of the 265th Air Defense Artillery, is sending the platoon as a “filler unit” for guardsmen wounded or sent home during their one-year tours of duty in Afghanistan. The detachment will be there at least five or six months, with the possibility of extension.

A St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office deputy and father of five who helped with hurricane relief in Punta Gorda this fall, Ladley said he does not know how he will deal with missing Christmas and his children’s birthdays.

“It will be hard wondering how friends are doing at home, wondering how the job is going,” said Ladley, cradling the infant. “That stuff eats everyone up regardless of rank. The training and the job is nothing compared to it.”

Ladley’s wife of three years, Carrie, said the family exchanged gifts for an “early Christmas” during the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Last minute recall“Tom was originally supposed to deploy to Afghanistan in March, but he was recalled at the last minute due to complications in my pregnancy,” Carrie Ladley said. “We’ve known since November 2003 he would be going. It’s easier for me because of the timeframe, especially now that I know the baby is okay. But it will still be hard just not hearing from him every day and being home alone with the kids.”

Of her four older children, she said, “The two oldest understand, the five year old has no clue, and it will be impossible to explain to the two year old why dad’s not home.”Unlike Ladley, the other soldiers in the detachment did not find out until October 22 they would deploy to Afghanistan.

“I knew it was a possibility when I signed the National Guard Contract, but it came as a shock it was so soon,” said recent enlistee Pfc. Kenneth C. Maltais, 21, of Boca Raton. “Better Afghanistan than Iraq”

Maltais was joined at the farewell ceremony by his parents, girlfriend, a female cousin and two sisters. “I’m proud and I’m worried,” said Sandy Maltais, his mother. “I know he’ll do a good job and serve his country.”Other families had similarly emotional farewell scenes on Saturday.

“I’m glad my daughter Jill will be there while he’s away,” said Becky Barber, whose 38-year-old son-in-law Cpl. Jeffrey Pilgrim had been in the unit just two weeks when the deployment order came. She said Pilgrim is three years from retirement. Michael and Belinda Jaffe of Melbourne Beach said their 18-year-old son, Pfc. Derek Jaffe, had volunteered for Afghanistan and been elated by the deployment.

“He’s very focused and dedicated to his country,” Michael Jaffe said, watching his son shift excitedly from foot to foot while standing in the ranks prior to the ceremony. “He’s been packed for over a month and will stay in Afghanistan as long as they let him.”

“He’s always done crazy and adventurous things, and he’s been in and out of the emergency room more times than I can count,” Belinda Jaffe said. “He can do those things legally in the Army. I’m proud of him, but scared.”

Belinda Jaffe said that her six-year-old boy Eric, the youngest of her four sons, would not understand his brother’s absence for Christmas.

“He asked me this morning ‘who will win’ the battle,” she said. “I said we would. He asked how I knew that. I said because we are right.”

During Saturday’s brief farewell ceremony, officials from the army and government gave several speeches to the troops.

First Sgt. Regina Bell, a West Palm native who served in Iraq during Desert Storm and again this year, said the 32 soldiers leaving today would forget all of them.

“You remember the day you come home more than you remember the day you left,” Bell said. “The farewell ceremony is a blur — you can’t even remember everyone who was there. Coming home is definitely more important.”

Thanks to Jill for passing this along, and to your Hero for all he's doing.

from Stars and Stripes

AL ASAD, Iraq — U.S. military officials in Anbar province are reporting progress in one of their most difficult missions: securing Iraq’s porous borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and turning over complete responsibility for the job to Iraqi forces.

Over the last three months, Marines under the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (parent formation of C 1/7) have built — or rebuilt — more than two dozen border forts and recruited more than 1,000 specially trained Iraqi border security forces (Brian's company is training them at Camp Wolf).

It is possible, Marine Corps officials say, to have the entire border security system in Iraqi hands by this year. If so, it would be a significant milestone in the U.S. military’s struggle to train and equip Iraqi security forces as a means to ending the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The effort’s centerpiece is a specialized Iraqi unit dubbed the Desert Wolves, which U.S. officials say will be the heart of a revitalized and reconstituted Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement.
“Bringing people into sections of the border where they’re not from is one of the smartest things we’ve done,” said Maj. Bart Logue, a Marine Corps foreign area officer attached to the Okinawa-based 31st MEU.

“It’s very important that they not be tied to the sheiks of that area, and they don’t have to follow the cultural rules,” he said in a reference to kickbacks, bribes and other forms of petty corruption and influence that U.S. officials say were rampant in the former regime and its security forces.

Several times a week, Logue, members of the Navy’s Seabees and the Army Corps of Engineers load into 31st MEU helicopters and check on the forts. They always are accompanied by a heavily armed security element.

On Tuesday, Marines from Company C, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines — armed with everything from light machine guns to rocket launchers — piled into two helicopters at Al Asad and headed out for an inspection of forts along the Iraqi-Saudi border.

About halfway to their destination, though, fierce sandstorms forced them to turn back. The conditions made a landing too dangerous to attempt, so the inspection was postponed. On days when they do reach the forts, the Marines clear and secure the areas, sometimes running into booby traps or discovering the forts — which resemble stone castles with turrets — vandalized or damaged.

The $32 million project is being undertaken through local contractors and labor, said Logue, a 33-year-old from Monterey, Calif., and a military-trained Arabic linguist. The forts are meant to add a physical presence to Iraq’s borders, which long have been sand berms in open stretches of desert.

Small teams from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also are working with Iraqi border forces, training them in customs, immigration and trade. Last month, Logue said, leaders of the Desert Wolves met with Syrian border officials for the first time in years to work on coordinating cross-border issues.

“That happened within the first 30 days of the program. I’m truly impressed,” Logue said. “These are the guys who are going to be making a difference for their country.”

The Syrian border has been the most difficult to secure, with U.S. officials saying hundreds of foreign fighters have been allowed to enter Iraq through that route. However, senior U.S. diplomats have said the problem is being curbed to some extent.

“We have seen a lot of improvement regarding foreign fighters who were using Syria to enter Iraq, and this is a good thing,” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters last week in Damascus after meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“But I also made the point that former regime elements of the Iraqi regime sometimes cross back and forth on the border, and that it’s very important to have that stopped,” he said, according to a State Department transcript of his comments.

According to the Pentagon, the U.S. government is holding some 325 foreign fighters in Iraq. Nearly half of those were captured in the past two months, officials said, many during the November assault on Fallujah.

And though the aim of the border program is to stop the illegal traffic, recruiting and training a successful border force are crucial pieces of the larger security picture, military officials said.
“It’s important the security forces know this is a combined effort. It’s critical they know that when things are happening, we’re there to support them,” said Logue, who also serves as the 31st MEU’s Iraqi Security Forces coordinator.

“This is not because the 31st MEU happened to find a good bunch of Iraqis. The key is they are training alongside us. No one asks these guys to do anything the Marines are not willing to do,” Logue said.

From the Department of Defense:No Illusions: Insurgents Are Not Heroes
BAGHDAD, IRAQ, Jan. 14, 2005 — Any idea that the insurgency is a spontaneous rising of the Iraqi people is "hogwash," said a senior Multinational Force Iraq official here. "There are no illusions about the insurgents," he said. "The people know they are immoral, vicious animals who want only their own power." Story

ON THE GROUND'Little Things Make All the Difference'TALLIL, Iraq, Jan. 14, 2005 — When Joe Faustina, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, hired several local engineers to work on projects for the Corps, he heard some horrible stories about the former regime and what had happened to some of the local people. Faustina was determined to help those still suffering.Story

Airmen Arrive for Duty in Afghanistan
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Jan. 14, 2005 — A new team of approximately 700 airmen is scheduled to arrive at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, within the next three weeks for a 120-day mission supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Story

FACE OF DEFENSEMarine Puts Accounting Degree to WorkCAMP LEJEUNE, N.C., Jan. 14, 2004 — When U.S. Marine Cpl. John R. Glynn was in school, math was his favorite subject. He never could have known that his love for numbers would someday put him in control of $5 million and the lives of nearly 2,000 Marines. Story

Spouse Helps Troops, FamiliesWASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2005 — A bit over a year ago, Joan DeFalco heard the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany needed help getting personal items for servicemembers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said she wanted to do something. Story